Traffic police numbers fall 29% in 10 years

Traffic police are crucial to ensuring that road traffic law is enforced and illegal driving is minimised. Unfortunately figures obtained by the chair of the All Party Cycling Group, Julian Huppert MP, reveal that the number of police has collapsed in the last decade.

Traffic police have become a rare sight on Britain's roads

Having heard from various sources about the collapse in traffic police levels in various police forces, CTC asked Julian Huppert MP whether he would investigate through a Parliamentary Question.

The result is shocking: traffic police levels have fallen by 29% in ten years, from almost 7,000 uniformed officers down to just 4,868. During that same period total policing levels remained unchanged, at around 135,000.

As a proportion of all police in England and Wales, those with traffic responsibilities make up 3.6% of the total. Yet that varies considerably from force to force. In 2012, Cumbria had over 7% over its officers working on traffic, whereas in Nottinghamshire it was just 1.7% and Devon & Cornwall Police had no traffic police at all.

CTC is now investigating what changes have taken place to traffic police levels in different forces over the last ten years.

CTC believes that more traffic police are needed to ensure that illegal driving behaviour is detected and sanctioned.